Monkey Beach (29 page)

Eating fish was something she did understand, even though she couldn’t fry fish any more. Her favourite way of baking fish was to use big, thick steaks covered in onions, which were now also on her forbidden list. But whenever I went to her house, I could count on fish stew, fish casserole, fish cakes, steamed fish, canned fish and dried fish. If it wasn’t salmon, it was halibut, rock cod, lingcod or the occasional trout.

On one of his visits, Jimmy had decided to introduce Ma-ma-oo to Run DMC. Ma-ma-oo had listened politely, then told him to shut it off because it was giving her a headache. “When I was young, everyone goes listening to cowboy music. Everyone’s singing away about horses and shootouts, and there’s not even a cow for miles around. Now they’re all singing about gangs, all these people shooting each other, and there’s not a city around. You explain that.” We sat at her kitchen table, drinking mint tea from her chipped mugs.

“I don’t like country music either,” I said.

Ma-ma-oo offered me a plate of Oreos. I took three. The fridge rumbled to life, gurgling and choking. The avocado green clock ticked irregularly. Dad had given Ma-ma-oo the latest in digital clocks to replace it, but she hadn’t taken it out of the box, saying that if she had to read a book to make it work, it was too much trouble—and besides, it was ugly. Ma-ma-oo
slurped her tea. Sometimes her hands would tremble and she’d stare at them.

On good days, we went tromping around the bushes. She said she really wanted to bump around on her boat, get away from the noisy village, but the bouncing made her nauseated now. On bad days like today, we sat in her kitchen and drank tea. At first, I used to fill the silences with chatter. She’d listen and nod. But after a few visits, I realized she was just happy to have me there and I didn’t have to entertain her. The silences grew comfortable.

At the end of the school year my marks were horrible, but most of my teachers bumped my marks up to passing, citing extenuating circumstances. I was going to high school. I tried to be excited—only five years left in my sentence.

Jimmy crushed his competition and earned his first swimming scholarship late that spring. It covered all his travel expenses and extra swimming lessons. Mom and Dad threw a surprise party for him and invited his teammates and all the family. Halfway through, Dad proudly read out a letter of commendation that basically said my brother was Canada’s brightest hundred-metre butterfly hopeful.

At the end of the year, Frank came up to me at lunchtime. He didn’t look at me. He kicked the toe of his boot against the ground. We both watched his boot get scuffed.

“Anyone ask you to grad?” he said.

What a dumb question. “Why? You asking?”

For a moment, I thought he was going to say yes. He opened his mouth, then paused. We stared at each other, and I noticed the scar that cut his left eyebrow in half, how his nose was sunburned, how he was exactly my height and I ended up looking right into his eyes, which were dark, dark brown.

“No way José,” he ended up saying. “I’m skipping it.”

“Hmm,” I said. Hands clammy, mouth dry, I stared off at the playground, unable to say anything. Disappointment hit, then confusion about the disappointment, then I started to sweat.

“See ya,” he said.

“Mm-hmm,” I said.

He took off running. I sagged against the wall, wiping my hands against my jeans. Jeez, I thought, that was weird.

Frank went to grad, but he walked up with giggling Julie. I walked up with Pooch and Cheese on either arm. Pooch was bored, but Cheese was nervous and sweaty. He held himself slightly away from me, like I was the one who had smelly pits. When it came time to get our pictures done, Cheese snapped my bra strap. So when we posed under the arch made of balloons, in my grad picture, I was hitting Cheese while Pooch stuck his fingers behind my head in a V sign.

We met up a few days later. Frank was wearing a turtleneck even though it was sunny and warm. He said he was meeting Cheese at Sunrise and asked if I wanted to come. I shrugged and said sure. While we waited for the pool table, Cheese said, “Oh, come on. Show us.”

I didn’t know what he meant until Cheese grabbed
the turtleneck and exposed three large hickeys. Frank flushed dark red.

“Screw off,” he said, pushing Cheese away.

“Did you do it?”

“No, we didn’t. We just messed around.” He glanced at me, then at the floor, then at his hands.

Cheese guffawed. “Oh, yeah, that’s all you did.”

“Shut up.”

“You did it!”

“Cheese,” Frank said. “You are such a virgin.”

Cheese punched his arm and Frank punched him back and they started wrestling.

“Table’s open,” I said.

We played pool twice and then I said I had to go help with dinner. Frank said he’d walk with me but Cheese said he wanted to find Pooch.

“You want to split a Popsicle?” Frank said when Cheese was gone.

“Sure.”

He didn’t say anything on the way and I didn’t know what to say. We stopped at the bottom of the front steps. Frank casually leaned against the railing and said, “We’re biking across tomorrow.”

“For what?”

“Change of scenery.”

“When you leaving?”

“Probably noon. You coming?”

“Well, I have to see the queen of England for tea in the morning, but after that I’m free.”

He slugged my shoulder and laughed. “See you then.”

I slugged his shoulder back. “See you then.”

Frank and the guys decided to celebrate the end of school by drinking some beer Frank had stolen from his brother Bib. When I went over to Cheese’s, Pooch had fallen asleep on the bed. He was sleeping so hard that the guys thought we should throw water on him to wake him up.

“Jeez,” I said. “How much did you guys drink?”

“He only had one can,” Frank said.

“Can’t handle his drinks,” Cheese said, smirking.

I found a bottle of bright red nail polish in the bathroom, took off Pooch’s socks and shoes and started colouring his toenails. Frank and Cheese laughed their heads off. It was very relaxing; I realized why Mom liked doing my nails. Pooch, of course, was not impressed. He didn’t have any nail polish remover, so spent his spare time over the next few weeks scraping it off with a nail clipper.

Dusk lingers nearly to midnight in the summer. Pooch and I were lying on a patch of grass in the middle of the darkening soccer field. We watched the sky and shared a smoke. Frank and Julie were making out on the bleachers. Her giggles and squeals drifted across the field.

“You ever talk to your dad?” I asked Pooch, handing him the cigarette.

“Lots. He was—”

“No, I mean now.”

Pooch sighed. “I tried. It never really worked. Wouldn’t know what to say to him anyway. Sorry you offed yourself?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I wouldn’t know what to say to my uncle either.”

“You ever wonder what it’s like to die?” he asked, handing the butt back to me.

I sucked in the last bit before the tobacco met the filter. “Ma-ma-oo says you go to the land of the dead.” She’d also added that the people who committed suicide were doomed to walk forever between the worlds of the spirits and the living, but I didn’t think Pooch needed to hear that.

“I wonder what it’s really like.” He sat up and shook the empty pack as if that might dislodge a hidden cigarette. “Maybe Frank has some more smokes.”

“I think he’s busy.”

“Hey, Frank! You got any smokes!”

“Shut up!” I hissed.

“No!” Frank yelled back.

“I do!” Julie said. She walked over to us, the top three buttons on her blouse undone and her hair tousled. Frank followed her, scowling. She smiled brightly as she handed Pooch her pack. “What are you guys talking about?”

Pooch looked at me and I looked at him and we said, together, “Nothing.”

She giggled. “Or should I say
who
are you talking about?”

“Where’s Cheese?” Frank said.

Pooch shrugged.

They went back to the bleachers and Pooch handed me a cigarette. They were icky mentholated ones, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Later, Frank asked us why we didn’t like Julie.

“She’s okay,” Pooch said.

“She thinks you hate her.”

“Why does she want us to like her?” I said.

“I dunno. Girl stuff, I guess. Just pretend you like her, okay?”

“Man, you are so whipped,” Pooch said.

Pooch and I were sitting behind the Sunrise when I was busted. There were a bunch of other kids, too, but they were older and pretended that we weren’t there. Pooch bummed a smoke off his cousin and we were sharing it when suddenly Mom said, “Lisamarie Michelle Hill, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The first thing that popped out of my mouth was, “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

Her mouth dropped open. Oops, I thought, just before she grabbed my ear and dragged me to the car. She was too mad to speak. She hauled me to my room, shoved me in and slammed the door. She waited until Dad came home before she came into my room. Her face was pale, her lips thin and bloodless, and she motioned Dad to speak instead of lighting into me first.

“I hear you’ve started smoking,” Dad said.

“A couple of times,” I admitted.

“You’re way too young.”

“Too young?” Mom shouted at Dad. “This is all Mick’s fault. I told him not to smoke in front of her. I told him.”

“Like Dad’s never had a puff.”

He glared at me.

“What?” I said.

“You are not smoking again.” She then listed off all the reasons smoking was bad. I watched her mouth moving. She finished shouting and wound down with, “Young lady, you are not leaving this room until you promise me you are never smoking again.”

“So you want me to lie to you?”

“Lisa!” Dad said.

Over the next few days, she brought home pictures of diseased lungs, people with holes in their necks, statistics on death rates. Every time she did, I wanted to pull out a cigarette and smoke it in front of her.

Finally, at the dinner table, she announced that Dad was going to quit with me. He looked startled and said if he was going off cigarettes, she was damn well going to give up coffee. After that, Jimmy uneasily babbled about swimming until Dad finally said that mouths could also be used for eating. Just before bedtime, Mom caught Dad sneaking a puff, ironically enough, in the smokehouse. After she stomped on his favourite lighter, he went into the house and threw out her favourite coffeepot.

Jimmy took off first thing the next morning and stayed out all day, lingering at his friend’s house until well past curfew. Dad savoured his breakfast coffee. He took the longest, slowest sips, letting out little satisfied sighs that Mom grimly ignored as she whipped her milk into the strongest tea she could brew.

Mom drank so many pots of tea, the kettle was never off the stove. Dad took to sucking lollipops, chewing gum and munching candy bars and licorice whips. By the end of the week, he’d gained five pounds
and grumbled that at this rate, in a month he was going to be twice the man he was. Mom cheerfully suggested he take a long walk off the docks.

I was stuck inside during the most beautiful days of August. The sun was gloriously bright and warm, but the wind took the scorch out of the day, and the waves looked so inviting, I wanted to walk right down to the beach and bask in them like an otter. Cheese came by to say hi. We sat on the front porch. Pooch, he said, was unnerved by the way Mom had glared at him and was too chicken to visit. Frank was busy with Julie. Cheese told me about the soccer tournament he’d watched in Terrace and his brother’s baby girl puking all over the front seat of his mother’s new car. I would have enjoyed his visit more if my head wasn’t pounding.